A Molly Weasley Tradition
by Realmer06
Summary: Knitting Christmas jumpers is a Molly Weasley tradition, and not one either of them intend to give up.


Reveals are up over at Livejournal's Next Gen Fest, so I can now post my contribution this year! Some Molly and Molly gen goodness!

Thanks to Maggie, my ever faithful beta!

My prompt was: Molly is ending the tradition of sweater making as her hands are too arthritic to continue, but Molly II volunteers to pick it up and learn it to continue the tradition. Grandmother and granddaughter spend this precious time together.

Enjoy!

* * *

When Molly Weasley was nine, she told her mother that watching her grandmother knit was the most magical thing she had ever seen anyone do. Her mother's response was to burst out laughing, which Molly thought rather rude.

"I'm sorry, dearest," Audrey Weasley said immediately after, correctly interpreting her daughter's pointed frown. "It's just, you live in a magical world, surrounded by people doing actual, literal magical things all the time, and yet you use the word to describe the one thing your grandmother insists on doing by hand.

"Yes, exactly," Molly stressed. "Anyone with the spell can make a jumper by magic. That's not impressive at all." Her mother just stifled another laugh, and Molly glared all the more intensely. "She makes _24_ jumpers in a year, Mum," she explained emphatically. "And she does it all _by hand_. That's _magical_."

Her mother just continued to laugh, and Molly turned and stomped away with an exasperated sigh and a declaration that she would never understand grown-ups.

She asked her gran to teach her to knit that summer. Come Christmas, she gave away a lot of crooked and gap-filled scarves and pot holders. When James and Fred snickered and poked their fingers through the holes, she fixed them with a glare so fierce that they immediately dropped their gaze and muttered their thanks.

The Christmas before she started Hogwarts, Molly asked her gran if she'd teach her to knit a jumper. The request was made tentatively. Granny Molly still knit all two dozen Weasley Christmas jumpers by hand by herself, and Molly didn't want to seem like she was trying to steal a part of that. Gran always got a little cranky when an aunt or uncle gently suggested that she didn't _have_ to make everyone a jumper every year if it was too much for her.

"Why would I stop?" Gran demanded whenever the suggestion came up. "Knitting Christmas jumpers is a Molly Weasley tradition. What else am I supposed to do all year, alone in the house with just your father? Write my memoirs?"

So little Molly was a little nervous to ask if she could try knitting her dad's jumper that year. But the Granny Molly just beamed and beckoned her over and showed her how to cast on the rich navy blue yarn.

Jumpers, it turned out, were _much_ harder than scarves and potholders. But Molly had never in her life given up on something just because it was hard, and she wasn't about to start now. Her dad's jumper that Christmas may have been too small, and one sleeve may have been longer than the other, but she had made it almost all by herself. And the more she knit with Granny Molly, the better she got. By the time she was twelve, she was making three or four of the family jumpers, hardly a dropped stitch to be seen.

One Christmas break, sitting at her gran's side by the fire, putting the final touches on jumpers for Molly's mum and little Louis, Molly asked her gran why she never used magic.

"Wouldn't it be faster?"

"Oh, yes," Gran agreed. "It would be much faster, and that's the problem. Knitting by hand gives me something to do."

"What if you ran out of time?" Molly asked. "If something happened and you ran out of time, would you use magic then, to get everything done by Christmas?"

Her gran's reply was quicker and harsher than Molly was expecting. "No," Gran said, and when Molly looked up, startled at the darkness in her voice, Gran softened the answer with a smile. "It wouldn't be the same," she said. "And anyway, that's why I use everyone's birthdays as deadlines. It keeps me on track. And it's tradition."

Molly was 11 when she asked these questions, and she was smart and she knew that wasn't the real answer, because it didn't make sense. There was an almost two month stretch across May and June with no birthdays at all, and at least three times in the year when two birthdays were just days apart. It would have been much more logical to go in order of age and work at a steady pace of two jumpers a month.

But Molly was also smart enough to know better than to ask after the real answer. Sometimes people lied not to be mean or tricky, but because the truth was too hard. Molly would never ask James the real reason why he never wanted to play Seeker, and she would never ask her Uncle George the real reason the shop wasn't open on April Fools' Day. She may not have understood why her gran _really_ wouldn't use magic to knit the family jumpers, or why the birthdays were so important, but she _did_ understand that she didn't need to know.

Knitting by the fire with Gran became one of Molly's favorite things to do. Oh, she'd spend her days on holiday running wild with the boys or playing Quidditch with her cousins, but in the evenings, after dinner, she and Gran could always be found at the hearth, knitting needles in hand, making Christmas jumpers together as little Molly asked questions about her aunts and uncles and Granny Molly regaled her and anyone else who came to listen with stories from way back when.

The summer Molly turned 12, she noticed that before they started knitting, Gran would cast some sort of spell on her hands. When Molly finally asked what the spell was for, her gran smiled a sad sort of smile.

"Arthritis," she said. "It's a pain-blocking spell, but it wears off sooner than I'd like it to."

"Can't the Healers fix it?" Her gran answered with a shake of the head.

"They can slow it down and help with the pain, but it's a symptom of getting older, my dear. There's only so much magic can do, and it can't stop time." When Molly continued to look concerned, her gran reached over and patted her hand gently. "Don't worry yourself over me," she said. "I'm fine."

But she wasn't. When Molly first noticed the spell, Granny Molly was casting it once at the start of each knitting session. By the time Molly was 14, Gran was stopping four or five times in an evening to renew the spells, and her face was pinched with pain and she was less inclined to talk. Her knitting was getting slower, too, and August was one of the busiest months. Molly finished three jumpers that month to her gran's one. There was a time when those numbers had fallen the other way around. Molly wasn't the only one who noticed. Her father and several aunts and uncles all made gentle reminders that no one would be put out if they didn't get a jumper that year. Granny Molly snapped at them all.

That year, at 14, Molly knit eight jumpers to her grandmother's sixteen. Three days after Christmas, while the rest of her cousins (and a fair number of her aunts and uncles) were engaged in a massive snowball fight outside, Molly took the Burrow stairs two at a time, heading for her grandparents' room to ask Gran about the best way to knit a jumper in the round for Louis, who hated the feel of the seams on his arms. Her gran's name was on her lips when a hushed sentence echoing out from behind the partially open door in front of her, stopped her short.

"Molls, there has to be a better way."

"Arthur, please, I'm _fine_ , I just have to get this finished by the second."

"You're _not_ fine, this is not _fine_. You can hardly hold the needles anymore."

"That's not true. I just have to get Fleur's jumper done, then I can take a break for a bit."

Molly bit her lip, shrinking back from the door. She knew she shouldn't eavesdrop on her grandparents, but they were talking about Gran's knitting. They were talking about things that had been worrying Molly, too. So instead of slipping back down the stairs, she crept closer and listened.

"... ask Molly to help."

"I can't put that on her, Arthur. This is her break, she's just a child, she deserves to have a Christmas holiday without being chained to the fire, knitting with me."

"Then use a spell, or take more time, but seeing you in this much pain-"

"I _can't_." Her Gran's voice was insistent and frantic. "It has to be done by hand, it _has_ to be finished by her birthday, you _know_ that-"

"Molly." Her grandfather's voice was gentle, but at the same time, it cut through Gran's protests and silenced her. Molly leaned closer to the door to hear. "Fabian and Gideon did not die because you used magic to make their jumpers. Fred did not die because his jumper wasn't finished by his birthday."

"I know, I know, I know," Gran interrupted, upset and on the verge of tears. "I _know_ that, Arthur, but I also know that those were the only times, the _only times_ , in all these years, that I ever altered how I do this. So I know you're right, I do, but whose life would you have me gamble with to test that?"

There was a long silence then, in which all Molly could hear was the thumping of her heart as more than a few mysteries suddenly found answers. After a lengthy silence, her grandfather said, his voice heavy and resigned. "All right. But maybe this should be the last year, Molls. You have to finish this year because you've already started, I understand that. But maybe this is the last year." Molly crept away before she could hear her gran's reply. She didn't want to know if Gran agreed or not. There had to be another way.

Aunt Fleur's jumper was finished on the first of the year, and shortly after, Molly returned to Hogwarts, loaded up with yarn and a fierce determination.

Molly Weasley had been "that girl who knits all the time" since she'd started at Hogwarts. And it was true that she could often be found by the fire at night, working on a jumper, but if her Housemates thought that was "all the time," they were proved wrong the second term started that year.

She knit by the fireplace in the Common Room at night when all her other work was finished, but she also knit in the Great Hall when she was finished eating, in the Quidditch stands while cheering on her cousins, in the library as she read and revised and used a Verbatim-spelled quill to dictate her essays. She'd have knit in class if she thought she could get away with it, but every spare moment she had was spent with needles in her hand, gradually turning balls of yarn into the cable-knit masterpieces she could churn out in her sleep.

In the past, she'd gotten maybe two jumpers done a term. It depended on her workload and her classes and whose jumpers she was knitting that year and when their birthdays were. The winter term of her fifth year, she had seven done by Easter.

She went home for the Easter holiday, mostly to visit her grandmother, a small trunk in tow. "Hi, Gran!" she said brightly, breezing into the kitchen. "So, I have something important to tell you, and I hope you won't take it the wrong way," she said after hugging her grandmother hello and declining a cup of tea. "Remember how you told me that you like to knit because it gives you something to do? Well, it turns out, knitting helps me focus when I'm revising. And with OWLs coming up, well . . . I've gotten a lot of jumpers done since January."

And she started lifting the finished jumpers out of the trunk. "I did James's and Fred's, as usual, and Uncle Ron's and Uncle George's like we talked about, and then I realized I was going to get a lot more done, so I started at the end of the year and worked backward, so I have them done for Mum and Uncle Bill and Louis, and I've started Roxie's." She bit her lip, sheepish and apologetic. "It really does help me study, so I'm going to keep going, but I don't want to take anything away from you, so I can just make jumpers to give away to my friends if it feels like I'm taking over, honestly."

And she waited for her gran's response. Granny Molly sat looking at all the jumpers, running her fingers gently over the nearest with tears pricking at her eyes. After a moment she looked up at Molly and found her voice. "Oh, you wonderful girl," she said softly. "This was going to be the last year for me. I just can't keep up anymore, and I didn't want to add to your load. But if you don't mind . . ."

"Oh, no, Gran," Molly said earnestly, sitting next to her gran on the sofa and taking her hand. "Seriously, it really helps, I don't mind at all. I just don't want you to feel like you're losing anything."

"I don't feel like I'm losing anything at all," Gran said, and Molly believed her. "And I didn't want to stop. If you feel like you can take on more, then this year doesn't have to be the end."

"How about this," Molly said. "You have Grandad's done, and Lily's?"

"Yes, and I'm halfway through Hugo's."

"Well, the next five birthdays after that are all grandkids. Why don't you let me tackle those, and you focus on Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny and my dad? We should be able to have those done by the summer holiday, and that will only leave six more to divide."

"Gracious," said Granny Molly with a breathless smile. "At this rate, we'll be finished by August!"

Like well-oiled clockwork, and without needing to discuss it, they both pulled out their half-finished jumpers and settled in by the fireplace.

"Gran?" Molly asked after a few minutes. "Why did you start knitting?"

She laughed, a quiet chuckle, and her hands stilled. "Why, I haven't thought about that in ages. It was my grandmother who taught me. My brothers, Fabian and Gideon, they were older than me, and I idolized them. I wanted to do everything they did. But they didn't want their kid sister tagging along. I would sulk about it, or I would try to follow them anyway. Finally, my grandmother sat me down and told me she was going to give me something besides my brothers to think about. So I started knitting to try and forget that they were off having adventures without me. And then they went to school and I knit to forget about how much I missed them. Then the war came and I . . ." She trailed off, shaking her head. "It wasn't until then I realized that I was never knitting to forget them. It was always my way of keeping them in my thoughts. That's why I started, and I guess I never stopped. I know I'll have to eventually, but I always convince myself I can last one more year."

"Of course you can," Molly said with a smile. "We can. It's tradition, right?"

That Christmas, after gifts were given and jumpers had been pulled on over pajamas and Molly had successfully avoided answering half a dozen inquiries of "Who knit my jumper this year, you or Gran?," her father caught up to her as she leaned against a counter in the kitchen, watching the younger grandkids build a snow-wizard.

"Thank you," he said, sinking down beside her.

She glanced at him. "For what?"

"For finding a way to give your grandmother an out without letting her feel like she's losing her agency."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Mmhmm," he said, his blue eyes twinkling with amusement. "Well, your secret is safe with me."

"I don't have a secret, Dad," she said simply. He arched an eyebrow.

"Knitting helps you study?"

The corner of her mouth twitched upward. "It does."

"And when did you discover that?"

"When I set myself a goal of finishing seven jumpers in three months," she said without hesitation. Her dad smirked and turned back to the yard, as if he'd won the argument. She shook her head with a breath of laughter. "It's not a secret, Dad," she said then. He frowned, puzzled. "It's not a secret, and it's not a lie. You think Gran doesn't know? Of course Gran knows. She knows a lot of things. She knows you all are right and she can't keep up with the knitting anymore. She knows that I found a way to help that, yes, lets her save face but is also true. She knows all that just like she knows that you all wait ten years, unravel your jumpers, and regift her the yarn."

Her dad stared at her, stunned, and she almost laughed out loud at the look on her face. He attempted a feeble protest, but she cut him off. "Dad. She's old. She's not daft. You all keep telling her that she doesn't need to knit everyone a new jumper every year, like that's news. Like it's some shocking thing she's never thought of. Of course you don't all need a new jumper every year, it's not about that. It's never been about that. It's the thought behind the action that matters."

She thought about telling her dad about Fabian and Gideon and Fred, about jumpers made with magic and jumpers finished late and the fears and worries that plagued Granny Molly because of her loses. He'd understand, she knew. But she also knew that it wasn't her secret to tell. So she told it another way.

"It's not the jumper; it's the act of making it. It's how she stays connected to all of us and keeps us in her thoughts, no matter how far-flung we get. That's why we switch off whose jumpers we knit every year. So she still has the chance to feel connected to all of you. I don't have a secret, Dad. I just looked at things long enough to see what was really going on."

It took her dad a few moments to process that, but eventually, he nodded, satisfied.

"How long will you keep it up?" he asked then. She looked back toward the fireplace in the sitting room, at her gran tucking away the newly gifted skeins of emerald and crimson and navy and maroon yarn with a knowing smile, then met her dad's eye.

"Why would I stop?" she asked with a smile. "Making Christmas jumpers is a Molly Weasley tradition."

* * *

Please consider leaving a review.


End file.
